Korean researchers develop ultrafast 'soft meta-surface' that lets users feel virtual objects

Korean researchers have developed an innovative three-dimensional surface technology that allows users to physically feel the texture of virtual objects in the real world.

The National Research Foundation of Korea announced Thursday that a research team led by Park Yoon-seok, a professor at Kyung Hee University, has developed a next-generation "soft mechanical meta-surface" system — drawing on the driving mechanism used in magnetic levitation trains — that can freely change shape and restore itself without damage even when touched.

A mechanical meta-surface is a programmable deformable surface structure capable of actively transforming its geometric shape in response to external stimuli.

Advances in human-machine interface technology have driven surging demand for touch-based platforms that let users exchange information in real time by touching a screen. That growing demand has brought mechanical meta-surface technology — which actively reshapes surfaces in response to external stimuli — into sharp focus.

Existing meta-surface technologies had significant limitations: they were vulnerable to physical impact, responded too slowly to track human movement in real time, and required bulky external camera equipment to detect surface changes — all of which made commercial use in everyday settings difficult.

The research team addressed these shortcomings by combining two polymer materials with different elasticity levels to design a flexible yet rigid dual-layer structure. They then uniformly mixed neodymium magnetic particles into a flexible elastic polymer at each pixel, creating a soft meta-surface that responds sensitively to magnetic fields.

Applying voltage beneath the surface allows the height of each pixel to be individually controlled at a speed of 8 milliseconds. Experiments confirmed that the system can theoretically express more than 10³⁰ distinct three-dimensional shapes.

The team also embedded a precision inertial measurement unit inside the surface, enabling real-time detection of surface changes without any external camera.

Because the soft surface and embedded sensors form an integrated structure, the system can autonomously restore its target shape even when temporarily deformed by external force. Experiments confirmed that this physical resilience holds up through 5,000 repeated cycles with no structural damage or performance degradation.

The research team said the technology is expected to find practical use as a haptic display that lets users directly touch and feel virtual objects in metaverse environments, as an immersive telemedicine system that replicates the experience of examining a patient in person, and as a skin interface for humanoid robots that fully reproduces human sensation.

"This research is a case in which shape transformation, self-sensing and visual output are organically integrated within a single soft platform," Park said. "We expect broad expansion into next-generation tactile interfaces, wearable devices and interactive displays going forward."

The findings, supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea through their Excellent Young Researcher program and Brain Science Leading Convergence Technology Development project, were published in the international journal Science Advances on June 26.